Isabelle Eberhardt

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Isabelle Eberhardt around 1900

Isabelle Eberhardt (born February 17, 1877 in Geneva , † October 21, 1904 in Aïn Sefra , Algeria ) was a Swiss globetrotter and travel writer. She later obtained French citizenship through marriage. Her works, and especially her person, were rediscovered during the women's movement in the early 1970s . She was particularly fascinated by her unusual lifestyle: the young woman wore men's clothing, traveled alone through the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains and frequented bars and brothels in the Maghreb .

Life

There is little reliable information about Isabelle Eberhardt's life; Documents on biographical data are rare. Most of the information comes from their posthumously published diaries. It is not clear to what extent Victor Barrucand, publisher and friend of Isabelle Eberhardt, redesigned her estate.

Childhood in Geneva

Isabelle Eberhardt was the daughter of the German-Baltic Lutheran Nathalie Eberhardt, who had emigrated to Russia and there married the noble Paul de Moërder (according to other sources General Karlovitch de Moerder or Pawel de Moërder), an officer in the tsarist army . She was the youngest child among five half-siblings. Nathalie is said to have left her husband a few years before Isabelle was born and ran away with the anarchist tutor Alexander Nikolajewitsch Trofimowski and the three first-born children (Nikolas, * 1864; Nathalie, * 1865; Wladimir, * 1868). After a long odyssey through Europe, the family settled on Lake Geneva in 1873 .

De Moërder sought a reconciliation with Nathalie and therefore traveled after her. Their fourth child, Augustin (recognized by him), was born in Montreux in 1872 . De Moërder died a year later. Presumably with his inheritance, around 1874/75, in Meyrin, in front of the gates of the city of Geneva, a lonely country estate with a large area was acquired, which was named Villa Neuve and which later became a meeting place for many opposition members of the Tsar. Isabelle grew up there. She was born on February 17, 1877 as Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie in a maternity hospital in Geneva and received her mother's single name for her surname. Her father's identity is not known with certainty; it was probably the family tutor, Alexander Trofimowski. According to rumors, which were probably also spread by Isabelle herself, it could also have been the poet Arthur Rimbaud or one of the mother’s doctor who was not named. Trofimowski, called "Vava" for short within the family, took care of her upbringing. The former Russian Orthodox priest, originally from Armenia , became a mouthpiece for the doctrine of the “creation of free man” under the influence of Michael Bakunin (1814–1876) and as a supporter of the Tolstoyans , who represented peasant-religious anarchism. He strictly rejected institutions such as church, school and marriage. He taught the children history, languages ​​and literature in the mornings, and in the afternoons they worked together in the garden - in line with the Tolstoian ideal of “strengthening body and soul”. Even here Isabelle was wearing her older brother's clothes and her hair was cut boyishly short, so that she - often with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth - could hardly be distinguished from the brothers. It remains unclear whether this happened as a general refusal to wear girls' clothes, a result of Trofimowski's wish, or whether it was simply practical for work in the garden. By the age of twelve she is said to have read the Koran in Arabic , the Bible in ancient Greek and the Torah in Hebrew . French, German and Russian were spoken in the Villa Neuve. Isabelle never attended a public school.

Passion for islam

Isabelle Eberhardt

Her fascination for Islam began early on - although or precisely because Trofimowski kept her away from questions of faith. In 1895 she wrote to her half-brother Augustin: "My body is in the Occident but my soul is in the Orient" and "without writing there is no hope for me in this cursed life in eternal darkness". Isabelle also began to feel uncomfortable in the house of Patriarch Trofimowski and drove to Geneva more and more often to explore the nightlife. There she fell in love with a young Muslim named Archavir, who was an activist of the Young Turks Movement and who lived in Geneva. During this time Isabelle decided to become a writer. She subscribed to the former Paris daily Le Journal . She made pen pals with intellectuals who taught her in religious questions about Islam and became enthusiastic about Arab culture.

When the doctor recommended her mother Nathalie to change the climate because of her migraines , Isabelle took the chance and traveled with her. In May 1897 they sailed on board the liner Duc de Bragance from Marseille to Algeria, which was then French . Trofimowski stayed behind with Isabelle's melancholy brother Vladimir. The two other sons had already fled to the Foreign Legion because of Trofimowski's self-sufficiency and irascibility , the older half-sister Nathalie had meanwhile married and moved to Geneva.

Bône in Algeria - Tunis - Geneva

From 1897, Isabelle lived with her mother in Bône (now Annaba ), where they both converted to Islam . In order to move around more freely, Isabelle took off her European clothes and dressed as an Arab man. She frequented local student circles and strictly adhered to certain rituals of Islam, such as ablution, prayer and fasting. However, their excessive alcohol and marijuana consumption, as well as their promiscuity , violated the commandments of Muhammad . The spa stay did not help her sick mother, she died on November 28, 1897 of heart failure. Isabelle consoled herself by working on her diaries, which were later published under the title Mes Journaliers (z. Dt. "Tagwerke"). She calls the beloved deceased "white spirit" and "white dove". In 1899 she wrote in her diary: “What illusions should I still have when the white dove, which was all the sweetness and the light of my life, has been sleeping down there for two years, in the earth, in the quiet cemetery of believers from Annaba! "

After her mother's death, Isabelle - now 20 years old - traveled to Tunis as a nomad . Under the code name Si Mahmoud, she wandered the desert in men's clothing, visited bars and brothels as well as holy places of Islam and lived promiscuously with the North African Bedouins . She wrote her first prose sketches, bought an Arabian stallion with the fee and rode alone into the interior of the Sahara desert. In March 1898 she ran out of money for hotels and travel expenses and had to return to Geneva. After arriving in Geneva, she took care of Trofimowski, who had cancer of the larynx and who died on May 15, 1899. Biographers speculate that the siblings gave him an overdose of painkillers to put an end to his suffering. Shortly thereafter, her brother Vladimir committed suicide in a fit of melancholy.

Return to Algeria

Isabelle Eberhardt

Isabelle returned to Algeria in July 1900. The financing of the trip is unclear: some sources speak of a small inheritance from the death of Trofimowski, other biographers argue that as an illegitimate daughter she was not entitled to inheritance, and speculate that she went to Paris to find a financial backer . There she met the widow of the adventurer and political activist Marquis de Morès (1858-1896), who had disappeared in the Sahara , and whose fate she was to fathom. For this job she received 1,500 francs travel money.

In Algeria, Isabelle bought the Arabian stallion Souf and rode into the desert again under the pseudonym Si Mahmoud Saadi . In the oasis of El Oued she met the quartermaster of the French garrison , a "handsome, soft, indulgent Algerian named Slimène Ehnni, who spoke excellent French, was the best lover Isabelle had ever met." The lovers wrote letters to each other about getting married and opening a grocery store to earn a living. Isabelle described Slimène to her brother Augustin in a letter from El Oued as follows: “He is a gentle, cheerful person who abhors the noise, the evening exits and the bars. He is domesticated and jealous of protecting his privacy from the outside world. Slimène is the ideal husband for me, because I am tired, disgusted and above all tired of the desperate loneliness in which I found myself despite occasional acquaintances. ”However, the mutual plans failed due to lack of money and Isabelle was soon back alone in the desert.

Assassination attempt on Isabelle and expulsion

On 29 January 1901, a young man grabbed Isabelle in the village square of Behima (now Hassani Abdelkrim ) with a scimitar on. She was hit in the temple and shoulder and survived the attack with minor injuries. Shortly before she was the Sufi - Order Kadriya joined. The assassin is said to have been a religious fanatic from the Muslim order Tidjaniya , which is hostile to the Kadriya . He later testified in court that Allah had ordered him to do so. Isabelle pardoned him in court and asked for mercy for him, but he was sentenced to 20 years of forced labor. But the trial was fateful for Isabelle too. The court recognized her as a foreign troublemaker and expelled her from the country for an indefinite period in May 1901. The court may have been influenced by previous observations in making this judgment. Isabelle and her way of life were suspicious to the authorities: she was often suspected of being involved in political intrigues or of serving as a spy.

Marseille

Isabelle left for Marseille , where she stayed with her brother Augustin (other sources report that she had moved into a room with strangers at the port). Augustine led a middle-class life as a teacher with his wife and children in Marseille. With the ulterior motive of gaining French citizenship or out of pure longing, Isabelle ordered Slimène to visit her. The two married on October 17, 1901, first at the registry office in Marseille, then according to the Islamic rite in a mosque. For the occasion, Isabelle wore female clothes for the first time in a long time: a black suit with a vest made of lilac satin and a black man's hat adorned with lilac. When the required papers were collected in January 1902, she traveled back to Algeria - now as a French citizen. There she never lived with Slimène as usual; again and again she was drawn to the loneliness of the Sahara.

Back in the Maghreb

Isabelle Eberhardt

Slimène had resigned from military service. The penniless couple initially lived with their parents. Isabelle was soon drawn away again into the vastness of the Maghreb. The French writer and journalist Victor Barrucand offered her free board and lodging if she wrote for the bilingual magazine L'Akhbar , which he published in Algiers . Isabelle accepted the offer, glad to have travel money. Barrucand also began to edit her early reports and short stories from the Sahara, which is why Isabelle gained a certain fame as a writer in Algeria and France. That same year, Isabelle was sent to the Moroccan border by the Dépêche algérienne as a war reporter. There she met the French military commander Hubert Lyautey , who asked Isabelle to act as a "mediator between the worlds" to establish contacts between the French and locals in order to prepare for the later peaceful annexation of Morocco to Algeria. Most of Isabelle Eberhardt's writings were created during this time. However, her professional success failed to lighten her inner mood. Their appearance is said to have had nothing more attractive either. The Swiss biographer Alex Capus describes it as follows: "Your face was ravaged by alcohol, your voice rough, your skull shaved and your mouth toothless".

death

Depressed and dissatisfied, Isabelle was still looking for “elsewhere”, she wrote: Mais aussi, comme toujours, je ressens une tristesse infinie qui envahit mon âme, un désir inexprimable d'un quelque chose que je ne saurais dire, une nostalgie d ' un ailleurs que je ne saurais nommer. ("As always, however, I also feel an endless sadness that creeps into my soul, an indescribable longing for something that I cannot put into words, sadness about somewhere else that I cannot name.") Isabelle was also suffering from her soul physically in bad shape. With Slimène, she decided to commit suicide together. The couple went into the desert with a pistol and absinthe , but were soon too drunk to carry out the plan.

In 1904, Isabelle suffered from such severe attacks of malaria that the couple had to visit the military station in Ain Sefra. There they rented a small cabin and on October 1, Isabelle entered the local military hospital. On the night of October 20th to 21st, a violent thunderstorm hit the region. Only a few hours earlier, Isabelle had left the safe hospital, against the express advice of the doctors, to return to her mud house, which stood on a wadi . Slimène fled the approaching water masses in time, but Isabelle stayed behind and drowned in the floods at the age of 27. Her body was found two days later, along with her only estate, the sketches for her novel Le Trimardeur (German "The Vagabond").

reception

Isabelle Eberhardt assumed a kind of role model for the women's movement in the 1970s: she was fascinated by her change of gender role , her love of traveling and the fact that she defied social obstacles in order to shape her life according to her own ideas. In 1981 Timberlakewertebaker brought the play Anatomies to the London stage through her , which was part of the classic feminist drama of the 1980s.

In 1991, Isabelle's life with Mathilda May in the lead role was filmed under the title Isabelle Eberhardt . On February 24, 2012 the opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, composed by Missy Mazzoli, premiered in New York . In her song Old Fashioned Morphine, Jolie Holland refers to Isabelle's drug use: "Give me that old fashioned morphine - It's good enough for me - It was good enough for Isabelle Eberhardt".

A street in the Geneva district of Les Grottes is named after Isabelle Eberhardt.

Literary work

Some of Isabelle Eberhardt's stories and travelogues appeared while she was still alive in the Algerian colonial magazine L'Akhbar and in La Dépèche algérienne , as well as in other French newspapers. It is still not clear to what extent Victor Barrucand, publisher and friend of Isabelle Eberhardt, redesigned her estate. Through her diaries, which were not intended for publication by her, an approach to Isabelle is possible. In the absence of third-party sources, this is often the only way to access her biography. The planned novel Le Trimardeur , whose sketches she carried around with her for years, remained unfinished. In her daily works ( Mes journaliers ), which comprise a total of four volumes, Isabelle Eberhardt describes her memories and experiences with feeling.

“Letters, diary sheets, prose” (published by Herrera Eglal) reveal more about Isabelle Eberhardt's work. Her literary work has been reworked in this homage. The changes by Victor Barrucand are said to have been left out, so that the original version could be presented enriched with biographical notes. Herrera Eglal writes: "A lot has been written about her person, but very little about her literary work, in which her whole being is revealed".

Catalog raisonné

All books with texts by Isabelle Eberhardt were published posthumously .

Original editions (selection)

  • Nouvelles algériennes , 1905
  • Dans l'ombre chaude de l'Islam , 1906
  • Mes journaliers , 1922

In German language

literature

  • Alex Capus : sky striker. Twelve portraits . Knaus-Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8135-0314-2 , (short biographies of various people).
  • Eglal Errera: Isabelle Eberhardt - A biography (with letters, diary sheets and prose). Lenos, Basel 1992, ISBN 3-85787-181-4 .
  • Annette Kobak: Like drifting sand - the intoxicating life of Isabelle Eberhardt . Neff, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7014-0296-5 .
  • Ria Endres : Become what you are - literary portraits of women . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1992, ISBN 3-518-38442-2 .
  • Susanne Gretter, Luise F. Pusch (Ed.): Famous Women , Vol. 1. Insel, Frankfurt a. M. 1999, ISBN 3-458-16949-0 .
  • Catherine Sauvat: Adventure in the Desert . Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-8067-2922-0 .
  • Sabine Boomers: Travel as a way of life - Isabelle Eberhardt, Reinhold Messner and Bruce Chatwin . Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2004, ISBN 3-593-37476-5 .
  • Alexandra Lavizzari : After Kenadsa (a novel about the last months of Isabelle Eberhardt's life). Friedmann, Munich, 2005. ISBN 3-933431-66-2 .
  • Magdalena Tzaneva (Ed.): Preserving a man's heart - 130 voices on the work of Isabelle Eberhardt . LiDi, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-940011-31-2 .

Web links

Commons : Isabelle Eberhardt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Steffi Rentsch and Rochus Wolff: Still Positioned Orient - On the 100th anniversary of Isabelle Eberhardt's death (1877–1904) . (PDF; 260 kB) kritische-ausgabe.de; Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  2. ^ A b Cecily Mackworth: The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhardt . Taylor & Francis, 1975, pp. 9ff.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Karin Feuerstein-Praßer: Isabelle Eberhardt - In search of freedom and happiness in the Sahara , pp. 12-20. In: Magdalene Tzaneva (Ed.): Preserving a man's heart - 130 voices on the work of Isabelle Eberhardt . Commemorative book for Isabelle Eberhardt's 130th birthday. February 17, 1877 Geneva - October 21, 1904 Ain Sefra. LiDi EuropEdition, Berlin. 2007.
  4. ↑ Sabine Boomers: Travel as a way of life , p. 97, op. Cit.
  5. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 156, op. Cit.
  6. ↑ a b Susanne Gretter: Famous Women , p. 84, op. Cit.
  7. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 157ff, op. Cit.
  8. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , pp. 160f, op. Cit.
  9. ↑ Denise Brahimi: The tit and the white spirit , p. 81. In: Magdalene Tzaneva (Ed.): Men heart preserve. 130 voices on the work of Isabelle Eberhardt . Commemorative book for Isabelle Eberhardt's 130th birthday. February 17, 1877 Geneva - October 21, 1904 Ain Sefra. LiDi EuropEdition, Berlin. 2007.
  10. ↑ Isabelle Eberhardt: Tagwerke , p. 42, op. Cit.
  11. ↑ Annette Kobak: Like drifting sand - The intoxicating life of Isabelle Eberhardt . Vienna, 1990. ISBN 3-7014-0296-5 .
  12. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 161, op. Cit.
  13. ↑ Isabelle Eberhardt: Tagwerke , p. 19, op. Cit.
  14. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 162f, op. Cit.
  15. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 163f.
  16. ↑ Eglal Errera: Isabelle Eberhardt , p. 181, op. Cit.
  17. ↑ Isabelle Eberhardt: Tagwerke , p. 19, op. Cit.
  18. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 164f, op. Cit.
  19. ↑ Isabelle Eberhardt - biography at Fembio , accessed on June 13, 2012.
  20. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer , p. 165, op. Cit.
  21. ↑ Sabine Boomers: Reisen als Lebensform , p. 102, op. Cit.
  22. ↑ Isabelle Eberhardt: Tagwerke , p. 27, op. Cit.
  23. ↑ Alex Capus: Himmelsstürmer, p. 167f, op. Cit.
  24. ↑ Sabine Boomers: Reisen als Lebensform, p. 111, op. Cit.
  25. ^ Peter Paul Schnierer: Modern English Drama and Theater since 1945: An Introduction . Tübingen: Narr, 1997, p. 162
  26. ↑ Song from the Upoar premiere: The Kitchen, NYC at www.missymazzoli.com
  27. ↑ Song from the Upoar ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.songfromtheuproar.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songfromtheuproar.com
  28. ↑ Old Fashioned Morphine on YouTube
  29. ↑ Eglal Errera: Letters, diary sheets , prose , p. 18, op. Cit.
personal data
SURNAME Eberhardt, Isabelle
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-French adventurer, travel writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 1904
Place of death Aïn Sefra , Algeria